


get rough, get away with it

by bonafake



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Angst, Character Study, Gen, Implied/Referenced Underage Drinking, Internal Conflict, M/M, Nationalism, Team North America, Unresolved Emotional Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-19
Updated: 2017-04-19
Packaged: 2018-10-21 00:18:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,686
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10673763
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bonafake/pseuds/bonafake
Summary: Team North America is the team without a nation.They’re a conglomerate of the Best Young Talent in the US and Canada, an imbalanced and imperfect tangle of the white-bread good Canadian boys and the blue-collar hard-working Americans. The young guns, the ones that haven’t been tested, been proven. Black-orange nothings that know how to skate and shoot but not about how to get up after a hit. No flag, no face, no parents. They’re kids, is what everyone’s saying.Auston isn't a kid, really. Not anymore.





	get rough, get away with it

**Author's Note:**

> RARE PAIRS. this is all the feelings. ship them with me; they're actually such a thing. like - remember how auston actually cross-checked polak For McJesus's Honor™? how is life real? anyways. this is unbeta'd - and on that subject, i'd be super amicable towards a victim - er, i mean, volunteer. title is from lorde's a world alone - surprisingly perfect for them.
> 
> if you know anyone in this... just.... go.... away.... please....
> 
> content notes: minor auston matthews/connor mcdavid, emotional tension, underage drinking, mild angst, internal conflict, missed opportunity, jack eichel's eternal second-overall crisis, brief cameos by johnny hockey™, ryan-nugent hopkins, jo drouin, nathan mackinnon.

Connor plays hockey in red and white.

He plays with blood, with the home-ice advantage, with the history of a hundred years and the memory of shinny on a frozen lake in early February in his mind. He plays with shiny white scars tracing his collarbone.

Hockey is so easy, when he does it.

Auston doesn't want to say it’s _his_ , in his blood, but it always seems like that. Like he’s uncomfortable off the ice, without his skates. Like he’s home, on it.

Sometimes Auston feels that, feels the cold in the tips of his toes like an ache, a throb like a heartbeat.

Sometimes he doesn't.

 

-

 

Team North America is the team without a nation.

They’re a conglomerate of the Best Young Talent in the US and Canada, an imbalanced and imperfect tangle of the white-bread good Canadian boys and the blue-collar hard-working Americans. The young guns, the ones that haven’t been tested, been proven. Black-orange nothings that know how to skate and shoot but not about how to get up after a hit. No flag, no face, no parents. They’re kids, is what everyone’s saying.

Auston isn't a kid, really. Not anymore.

 

-

 

He grew up in Arizona.

This is not a traditional market, Auston knows. Not a place that hockey players come from, not a place with a team that does _well_ . Auston grew up with sun on his face and too much of this bright blue sky above him and dark, burgundy red running through everything like veins. He has a saguaro cactus in his backyard and watched the blue purple orange watercolor-stain sunsets lie down over the flatness of his world and it’s all _his_ , is the thing.

People don't get it.

Mostly when he tells people _I’m from Arizona_ , they blink, and ask, “You’re a hockey player, right?”

He always says yes.

 

-

 

Auston played baseball, when he was little.

The true American pastime; apple pie and home runs and _this_ _is our year_ and those red-white-blue underdogs, smoldering in Chicago, in the stomach of the Union. Shocking green grass, orange-red dirt staining the hems of white socks. Sliding home. Home. What a funny word.

It never was his sport, exactly.

Auston belonged to the ice.

 

-

 

The desert was his, even still.

 

-

 

The US-NTDP is a brotherhood, of sorts. Do or die, you know? Group chats with pictures of soon to be stars wearing nothing but American flags and sitting in hot tubs, drunken fireworks and fourth of July parties. A club of stars-and-stripes-forever, of _anywhere but one of those fucking Canadian teams_ , of the vague shadow of Miracle On Ice.

He doesn't do miracles. He does hockey.

There was a reason Auston only spent two years with them.

 

-

 

He’d been sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, and he’d had all these heroes: Crosby, Toews, fucking _Shane Doan,_ for God’s sake, and then he’d been nineteen, and he hadn't recognized any of their faces, hadn't wanted to color in the holes of his own identity with the same shades as theirs. He'd been nineteen, and said _fuck it,_ and became his own hero.

Auston is to occupied with being his own hero to save anyone else, most days.

 

-

 

The first time Auston Matthews speaks to Connor McDavid, it is in an airport in Montréal. They get off their respective planes at the same time and see each other, collateral damage. They are the products of hype and ice and pressure.

Some people crack. They didn't.

“Hey,” Connor says. Nods at him, like, yeah, I see you.

“Hey,” Auston says. He offers his hand, like, yeah, I see you too.

“How was your flight?”

“Good. Yours?”

“Good. Are you heading to Bell Centre? We could split a cab.”

“Yeah,” Auston says. “We could.”

 

-

 

He’s done the whole _international tournament_ thing before.

It’s always been for the United States; for that hope of being the scrappy underdogs that sometimes come out on top, for liberty and the little guy, for going out and playing even when you know you can't win. He’s lost and won with stars on his shoulder  and no one ever expected he would do anything different.

Playing for a team without a face, without a flag or these _colors_  - it’s different, is what he’s saying.

Not bad. Just. Different.

 

-

 

Their locker room is a repurposed utility closet. Rather: their locker room in Bell Center is a repurposed country-divided utility closet that is presided over by the two governing bodies of Eichs and Connor McDavid.

Auston has seen this before.

He sits in between the two groups, Larks and Drouin on either side, and puts on his pads slowly and tugs his jersey - _MATTHEWS 34_ \- over his head. “Black is a good color for this team,” he says. “Goes with everything.”

Everyone stares.

Drouin gets up to sit next to MacKinnon.

 

-

 

Gaudreau dangles between Nugent-Hopkins’ feet during practice, goes five-hole. “I could do that during the regular season too,” he says. Grins.

“Fuck off,” says Nugent-Hopkins.

“Guys,” says Auston.

They glare at each other, but it mostly stops.

He catches Connor, staring over his shoulder at all three of them. Auston turns towards him, holds his gaze.

 

-

 

He watched Connor’s draft in 2015.

There were times when he wasn't sure if Connor was smiling or grimacing, his face plaster-cast, this pale mold of eyes and ears and bad skin and a frown that hasn't disappeared since June 26th. His eyelids had been heavy-set with the weight of a failing franchise, the weight of twenty-one ready-made teammates.

Hope isn't supposed to make a kid feel this heavy.

 

-

 

Connor lets himself into Auston and Jack’s room the night before their first pre-tournament game. Connor is lucky that Jack is out. “Thanks for-”

Auston nods. Connor picks at the hem of his shirt. “I just didn't - want to get into it.”

“You would have sided with Nugent-Hopkins.”

It’s not a question, but Connor nods anyways. “We’re teammates.”

“You’re Gaudreau’s teammate too.”

“Less, for this.”

“Bullshit,” says Auston. “You’re the captain.”

Connor shrugs, movements stiff like a marionette's, like his strings are tight when he’s off the ice.

Auston looks at Connor - earnest, eyes bright with conviction. He can feel how much he means this, how much it matters to him. Doesn't get it.

 

-

 

They go out after they shut out Europe on their first night. The tournament hasn't even technically started yet, and their win doesn't count for shit, but - it’s something.

Fuck yeah, _they’re_ something.

Well. Nathan MacKinnon is something, anyways.

The bar is crowded, dark. Auston can feel the pump of the bass in the soles of his feet, can sense the vibrations in the tips of his fingers. He didn't get a single point. Neither did McDavid, but - hell, it’s the pre-tourney. He takes a sip of ice-cold beer, water droplets running over the tips of his fingers. Across the bar, he can feel McDavid's eyes on his neck.

There’s a warmth in his stomach that he recognizes.

Chases, sometimes, even.

He sees Connor flush as he turns to meet his eyes, tilt his neck off towards the back door.

Auston stands up.

 

-

 

Outside of the bar is a lot like the inside of the bar - dark, loud. The best part about outside the bar is that it’s cold, brisk air shoving autumn into their faces, through their team-issued jackets. McDavid is different outside, black and orange jacket only halfway zipped, hanging over a frame that seems too small to hold the weight of him. “You don't seem all that happy tonight,” Connor says, looking down.

He shrugs. “Nothing connected,” Auston says. “Mack played good and-”

“Yeah,” Connor breathes. “Like, I was telling Coach. And then he told me to not to worry and the points would come. As if that’s what I’m worried about. We were so sloppy-”

“Like kids,” Auston agrees.

“Well,” Connor says. “We are all twenty-three and under.”

“We’re not kids. Not really,” Auston says. Looks up. Connor is so much closer than he’d thought earlier: all feathery hair and lidded eyes, breath warm on Auston's cheek. If he leaned forward another two inches, they would be kissing.

“No,” Connor says, angling his neck and looking out towards the street. The moment breaks. Shatters. “We’re not.”

Moments aren't irreplaceable, Auston remembers. He hopes, at least.

 

-

 

Sometimes, Auston thinks that Connor is so easy to read, and then it turns out he's only looked at the cover, the inner sleeve. He’s a complicated knot of a boy, too tightly wound to untangle and too opaque peer at from the outside. He colors himself with the shades of his sweater, with number 97, and Auston can't read past the glitter, the glam, of hype and talent. Can't tear it open, rip it off like a second skin.

There's nothing _easy_ about Connor McDavid.

Well. Nothing is easy about him, besides the fact that he loves to win.

 

-

 

When he'd gotten drafted - when Lamoriello had called his name, he could feel all of Toronto take a deep breath in, like: this is it. This is the future. It had been a wave of wild, maniacal ecstasy that carried him, carried a whole city, through the rest of the day. It had been hope, blue-eyed and downtrodden, and it had risen up when his name was called. He hadn't wanted to let it down.

This hope wasn't suffocating, not at all.

This hope had been as light as air.

 

-

 

Playing at the Air Canada Center is kind of like his draft. The crowd is so loud, so full of people in blue and white, people wearing his name. It’s like everyone is watching him, like he’s carrying more than himself in the cell of his chest.

He doesn't mind it.

Auston might have become his own hero at age nineteen, but he’s not opposed to being someone else's, too.

 

-

 

They watch game tape together in Connor and Ekblad’s mess of a room; clear off the clothes from his bed and plug in Connor’s MacBook and watch Russia. Pass, shoot, score. Neat, like gin in crystal-cut tumblers.

Team North America is not this, will never be this. They are birds with their wings clipped, never flapping higher than where they’re told they’ll go.

Auston falls asleep on the unmade bed and Connor doesn't wake him up.

 

-

 

Jack and Connor do not play well together.

Their passes are never quite on the tape, pucks spinning off of sticks and  scraping across the ice. Auston can see that they never know where the other is, can see that when Connor shoots, Jack doesn't expect him to score.

He wants to fix it, but he can't.

Not his place. Not his team.

 

-

 

Right now, _Connor_ has his hands are wrapped around a bottle of Molson and he’s laughing at something Larks is saying, mouth gone soft and loose, and the words flowing easy, throat open and honest. Connor has these dark brown eyes and they’re clutching at Auston, careful and deliberate, but it’s the kind of gaze that still wants.

 _McDavid_ is watching the room, and his eyes are darting around the room, mentally cataloging who’s going to need dosages from the extra-large bottle of Advil he has in his backpack in the morning. McDavid’s knuckles are white on the bottle and he’s feeling the bruises cut into his sides, wondering if beer might dull the aching. He doesn't see Auston. Isn't looking for him, more likely.

 _Davo_ isn't here at all.

 

-

 

He stands next to Nate while they’re watching the second power play unit during practice while he says, “We have a lot of first-overalls on this team, you know?”

Auston frowns. Says, “Yeah, guess so.”

 

-

 

The thing about Auston Matthews is that he grew up in the desert, and that’s never not going to be his.

The thing about Connor McDavid is that he grew up in the GTA, and he’s going to lose that so, so quickly.

 

-

 

Team North America gets knocked out of the tournament after the round robin.

Jack and Connor still don't talk to each other.

 

-

 

He might have won bronze at the WJC, but the only thing winning bronze sounds like to him is _losing gold._

 

-

 

Auston gets Jack Eichel better than anyone else. They’ve both played on the US-NTDP; they’ve both lost with a flag on their shoulder. It’s stupid, to think this, to assume that he could sketch out the shape of Jack’s character on corrugated cardboard, to assume that he could _understand_ it, but - Jack’s never been anything other than an open book, to Auston.

After all: they both went after Connor McDavid.

They are not so different after all, with this.

 

-

 

He says, “Don't be a stranger, McDavid.”

Connor looks back and says, “I won't.”

 

-

 

Connor goes back to Edmonton; Auston stays in Toronto. His parents help him move in. He meets Mitch Marner. He plays preseason games and shatters glass off a feed from Mitch. He scores four goals in his debut. This is an NHL record, they say.

(This is something they can never take away from him.)

In other news, Auston Matthews scores four goals in his NHL debut and becomes a living relic.

 

-

 

Back in 1917, Toronto was the team without a name. The Blueshirts, the Torontos, the nameless champions of a renegade league. The unnamed team became the Leafs, eventually - they were the Arenas, the St. Pats, first, before the blue-and-white. These are old names; this history isn't Auston's.

He’s got a name, now. Made it for himself.

 

-

 

Connor says, “No one - no one had it like I did.”

Auston waits. This is the moment.

“You’re the closest.”

He doesn't want to have the rewind the tape, to spool it back into the cassette carefully, meticulous, so he just - presses pause.

Hangs up.

 

-

 

The first time he played against Connor, he was eighteen. It was at World Juniors, and the United States came in fifth.

Canada got gold, that year.

He can feel every degree of separation between them like a gash. A scar, nowadays.

(There are a lot of them.)

There are so, so, many reasons why not.

 

-

 

Auston was nineteen when his name started showing up at the top of midterm scouting rankings. Before that, he hadn't been the Top Prospect Heading Into The 2016 Entry Draft, hadn't been a franchise player, a generational talent.

Hype is a grinding, bitter engine.

He can deal with it. Comes with the territory.

 

-

 

It’s like - they get each other. First overalls, ‘15 and ‘16 respectively. They were two of the select few wearing orange and black in September, generational talents too young for the national team. Connor understands the pressure, the _importance,_ of being a good hockey player in one of the hockey centers of the universe. Understands the ice, and how it can take over, if you let it.

He thinks Connor has let it do exactly that, sometimes.

 

-

 

The season winds on.

He can feel parts of himself starting to cleave off, after every loss, every shootout. Auston wonders if it feels like this for everyone; if he’s the only one that gets a little bit more empty when he’s showering after post-games.

It’s exhausting, this fight for it.

He wants to win, though, so he keeps going.

 

-

 

The Leafs are going to the playoffs.

This is monumental; a for-the-ages kind of accomplishment. Auston has always liked winning, no matter what colors he’s wearing - blue-white, desert-sand-and-beige. He’s never loved at team,  never _wanted_ \- not in the way Connor does, the way Mitch does.

The Oilers, also, are going to the playoffs.

This is special. Connor McDavid has broken a curse with a stick and two legs. Auston knows that he likes winning, too. Orange is not a color that Connor is fond of, even still, he thinks. Loving skin is only the second-hardest part, he thinks. Loving the shirt you’re mourned in, the chains you bear - that’s harder, for them.

 

-

 

He wants all of Connor, with all of this.

 

-

 

He calls him back, the first time since November. “Hey, Davo.”

Auston can hear his smile through the line. “Hey, Auston.”

  
-

**Author's Note:**

> this is, of course, absolutely complete fiction. any universe in which jo drouin is not already sitting next to nathan mackinnon in a utility closet in bell centre is clearly not an actual universe.


End file.
